


A Thousand Lives and Deaths

by Jezunya



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Bilbo POV, Canon-Typical Violence, Happy Ending, M/M, Temporary Character Death, Time Loop, slight body horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-17
Updated: 2017-08-17
Packaged: 2018-12-16 11:39:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11827977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jezunya/pseuds/Jezunya
Summary: Bilbo relives the quest over and over, a single day at a time, until he finally gets it right.





	A Thousand Lives and Deaths

Thorin Oakenshield dies many, many times before Bilbo manages to work up his courage and run out in front of the White Orc and his warg steed. A few times before that as well: several times, Thorin falls during the stone giants’ battle upon the mountain heights, or is speared through when the orc pack catches up to them outside of Rivendell. Once, very early on, before they even reach Bree, he slips and falls into the Brandywine and is dragged away under its surprisingly strong current and the weight of his own gear and terrified pony. That time, when Bilbo was yanked all the way back to the beginning, it was for once far enough back for him to refuse to even go on this blasted quest.

He was then sent back over and over and over, reliving the same day and the same not-so-unexpected dwarven party, until he finally once more agreed to join them.

He doesn’t ever get that chance again. If they can make it past Bree, and then past Rivendell, Bilbo never again returns to the very beginning. Instead, he finds himself at most a few days in the past; sometimes, mere hours.

It is always Thorin’s death that causes the day to reset, never any of the others: he witnesses the deaths of each of his other companions more times than he can count without being forced to go back and try again. The gods must truly want Thorin Oakenshield back on the throne of Erebor, he reasons, for them to place such emphasis on his life alone.

Well, not truly  _alone_. Bilbo’s own death also has him waking up in the past. Often, he knows he is going to die before it actually happens, picking up the clues from the orc blade sticking in his belly or the troll foot stamping his ribs flat or something else equally unpleasant.

When they make it as far as Goblintown, he learns two things very quickly: one, none of the dwarves care to listen to him enough to bother even _checking_ for goblin traps, and two, he is always the first to die if he goes with them in front of the Goblin King. He learns to duck and hide himself away after that, so that the rest are carted off without him, but he then cannot seem to stop being flung over the side of the path, down into the chasm where the creature with the glowing eyes tries to eat him. One time, he falls, begins mentally preparing himself for the game of riddles that is different every time – at least, every time that the creature does not manage to get a drop on him and rip Bilbo’s throat out before he can so much as raise his blade to defend himself – but this time, as he counts down the three, two, one of freefall, he sees and feels nothing, only a moment of darkness, and then Bofur is shaking him awake at first light so that they can sneak out of Rivendell.

It is rather disheartening to know that his soft landing in the goblin tunnels is not guaranteed, yet is also not something he can in any way control.

Azog seems like another thing Bilbo cannot possibly control or change. They escape the goblins, then hear the wargs’ howls, and are inevitably cornered in the trees on the cliff. Gandalf lights the whole hillside ablaze, the trees begin to fall, and then Thorin, the great idiot berserker, gets up and charges at an orc at least twice his size, mounted on a warg also two or three times the size of any dwarf, with a small army at his back, to boot.

And Thorin dies. Every single time.

But what is Bilbo supposed to do?! What could he possibly do that the great Thorin Oakenshield – or Gandalf the grey wizard, for that matter – could not do?!

He has stopped counting how many times he has relived this particular day, but finally, Bilbo feels something snap inside him as he once again watches Thorin stride through the flaming boughs only to be knocked down by Azog's white warg. The next moment, Bilbo finds himself up and running after Thorin, leaping in front of his fallen form, brandishing his little sword.

And, miraculously, he doesn’t die.

He fends Azog off for what must be just barely long enough, and then they are snatched off the ground by the giant eagles – eagles that, Bilbo fears at first, have claimed them all for their dinner, or the dinner of their hatchlings. When he has got over that particular fear, and the bone-chilling fear that comes every time he so much as glances in the direction of the ground, he feels a whole other sort of terror when he looks over at Thorin, lying limp and so very still in the eagle’s talons.

He has never before had to see Thorin actually _be_ dead, for all the times Bilbo has seen him _die_. He wonders what could be different this time, why he hasn’t been pulled backward yet if Thorin is indeed dead, and a thought occurs to him, a thought that he hates with all his being the moment he thinks it: that perhaps none of this was about Thorin’s life at all, and was instead meant to teach Bilbo to stand up, to find his courage, to learn some nebulous lesson about life and struggle or something else equally empty and meaningless.

None of that could ever possibly be worth Thorin's life, he is absolutely sure. 

He spends the rest of the flight on the eagle’s back alternately cursing the name of every Vala he can think of and willing Thorin to open his eyes again. When the eagles at last set them down atop the great bear-shaped obelisk, Bilbo anxiously listens in on Gandalf’s assessment and subsequently murmured healing spell. He breathes such a sigh of relief when Thorin’s eyes finally flutter open that it feels as though not only all the air but also all of his bones have fled his body, as though he could melt down into a hobbit-shaped puddle and happily never move again. But then Thorin staggers to his feet and rounds on Bilbo, and the words he spits out are angry, ungrateful, harsh— 

Thorin's arms around Bilbo are quite the opposite, though, as are his next words, the most sincere apology Bilbo has ever heard, murmured so softly in Bilbo’s ear, almost as if there is no one else there but the two of them.

And oh, Bilbo thinks, fisting his hands in the back of Thorin’s coat and burying his face in Thorin's chest and trying to simply not burst into tears and make a complete fool of himself, oh, this is worth a thousand deaths and more.

**Author's Note:**

> Idek, honestly. This idea occurred to me just earlier, about Bilbo being stuck in a timeloop but before he finishes the quest rather than after, before he gets to know ~~or fall in love with~~ any of the dwarves. I'm also weirdly intrigued by stories that feel kind of like video games: if he can make it past this next save point with both he  & Thorin still alive, they'll get to go on to the next level!
> 
> [My tumblr](http://jezunya.tumblr.com/)


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